Michelle Obama visits military families while in London
Efram Ramirez
Tuesday, July 31, 2012, 2:12:55 PM
The First Lady's support of military families knows no boundaries. While in London for the Opening Ceremonies of the 2012 Olympics, Michelle Obama took some time to meet military families stationed there, CBS News reports. She spent about 30 minutes with more than 150 family members stationed around the United Kingdom.
Her visit at RAF Mildenhall in Suffolk was not her first interaction with military families while in the U.K. Earlier in the trip, she invited about 1,000 American and British children to play games and sports with her and several Olympic athletes at the U.S. ambassador's residence, according to the Defense Video & Imagery Distribution System.
Phoenix Stanford, 8, was well aware of who she was meeting when she was greeted by the First Lady, the news outlet reports. Stanford, daughter of Senny and Master Sergeant David Stanford, who serves with the 100th Maintenance Squadron, had also attended Obama's Let's Move initiative event in London.
"It felt amazing!" Stanford told reporters of meeting Obama.
Meeting military families is perhaps one of the slightest ways Obama is helping them. She and Dr. Jill Biden have created the Joining Forces Initiative, through which they have been helping military spouses and veterans find jobs, tackling issues such as post-traumatic stress disorder and improving education for military children. Earlier in July, the rail industry joined the initiative, pledging to hire more veterans. More than 1,600 companies have now hired more than 90,000 veterans and military spouses through Joining Forces.
Additionally, the initiative recently addressed a need to improve mental health services for military and veteran communities, Air Force Times reports. Biden recently unveiled a new agreement between the initiative and the National Association of Social Workers to train more than 650,000 social workers on military culture and behavioral health concerns specific to military life.
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